Richard Smith said:They still do a lot of gravity switching on the short-line here, taking advantage of a pretty good grade at a junction to run cars around the engine. What's scary about it is that there is a grade crossing about 1/4 mile down the hill and the often use the EOT device to set the brakes by radio. If that radio link failed, it would be a heck of a mess :)
I've seen where there was a bit of downgrade a person climbing on the car, releasing the brake and then riding the car slowly into place and stopping it with the brake without ever levering it at all.
I was in San Francisco one time when I came upon a grade crossing where the bells started ringing and the gate came down. This was beneath one of the overhead freeway approaches to the Bay Bridge. Along came a lone boxcar whizzing through at about 30 mph. About a minute later along comes an SP switcher with several serious looking railroaders clinging to its footboards in hot pursuit. Quite a funny sight in spite of the potential seriousness of the situation. That area didn’t have the traffic of Market Street but still it was San Francisco!
Welcome to the LSC Forum Dexter.
The topic, Dexter, if you scroll back, is all about the method of loading and moving grain and boxcars - at a particular place in Canada, prior to the car being collected by a locomotive.
It shows how the railroads are, or were, in the rural food producing areas of you Country. Highly interesting and informative I think you will agree.
Another way to move cars was with a cable and winch system. Seen a lot of these out west and still in use. later RJD
In Britain many small yards, in the steam era, used horses to move wagons (freight trucks) around. Admittedly our freight cars were a lot smaller and consequently lighter in weight than American ones but I daresay horses were also used Stateside.
R.J. DeBerg said:The stone transfer facility here uses that system to move loaded hoppers through the unloader. I've tried, but not managed to get a photo of how and where they connect the cable. There is a pulley on the ground at the far end of each siding. I think the winch is in the unloading shelter,
Another way to move cars was with a cable and winch system. Seen a lot of these out west and still in use. later RJD
Jon, I worked at a cedar shingle mill in the early 70’s, we moved the box cars with a small ground mounted winch, would just hook the line wherever on the car and move it, mind you the siding was pretty near level if I remember. And then climb up and set the hand brake.